Interbrand recently released its Best Global Brands report, rating Microsoft as the fifth most valuable brand in the world with a brand value of over $61 billion, an increase of three percent. The report ranks Apple as the most popular brand for the second time, after they surpassed Coca Cola who are still at the third spot, with a brand value of over $118 billion. Google resides at the second spot, while IBM and Samsung, captures the fourth and seventh spot, respectively.
We’ve seen a lot of changes at Microsoft since Satya Nadella took the charge of the software giant after Steve Ballmer departed from the company. Microsoft has been focusing on its “mobile first, cloud first” vision, which is apparently working out for the company so far. The company also completed its $7.1 billion acquisition of Nokia’s devices division, which brings the popular Lumia brand under the software giant. It’s not just Nokia, the software giant also acquired Mojang, the company behind the popular Minecraft, in a $2.5 billion deal.
Several improvements have been made to the company’s mobile operating system, Windows Phone, introducing the long lost features which are already present in rival operating systems. Microsoft is trying hard to convince hardware manufacturers to opt for Windows Phone as their operating system, by introducing support for dual-SIM, which is widely popular in the emerging markets. Additionally, the company has waived off the license fee for small devices, which attracted a number of OEMs — we’ve seen a handful of budget-friendly devices see the light of the day in developing markets to compete against the cheap Androids. Recently, the company mentioned that it has added almost 50 new hardware partners after announcing the free Windows Program.
It’s not just the consumer business, several improvements have been made in the enterprise sector as well. Microsoft’s Windows Azure, a cloud computing service, has received several updates, and even price cuts lately so that it can go against Amazon Web Services (AWS) as well.
You can check out the complete list of most valuable brands in the source link below.
